


By Moonlight

by rhododaktylos_yue



Series: Confessions in Different Lights [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, TW Menstruation, Trans Zuko (Avatar), but I figured I should tag it in case it's someone's NOTP, hints of autistic Zuko, post-The Firebending Masters, pre-Boiling Rock, the Zukka is pretty minor, trans author, trans!zuko, tw Gender Dysphoria, tw eating disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25806217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhododaktylos_yue/pseuds/rhododaktylos_yue
Summary: Zuko wakes up in a pool of his own blood, to Sokka’s panicked screaming.Apparently, the Gaang was not already aware that he’s trans as Zuko had assumed, and Sokka does not seem to know what ‘moon time’ is.Some conversations ensue which clear a few things up and confuse other things.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Confessions in Different Lights [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888804
Comments: 38
Kudos: 948





	By Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Zuko deals with some gender dysphoria in this fic, and uses eating disorders as a means of controlling his body.
> 
> If there’s anything I forgot to tag, or if you’re worried about a potential trigger, please leave a comment about it, and I will get back to you, I promise!

Zuko woke to Sokka’s panicked screaming.

“Katara!”

Was this going to be a regular thing? Maybe training the Avatar and saving the world wasn’t worth it.

The second thing Zuko became aware of was the stabbing pain in his stomach. Not the icy burning of a knife, but the duller pain in his lower back, the kind of pain that sank into the hipbones.

Cramps.

“What’s wrong?” Katara’s voice sounded distant; she was probably in another room.

“Zuko’s been stabbed!” There was real terror in Sokka’s voice.

Wait. _Stabbed?_

Zuko blinked up at Sokka. With a groan, he sat up.

Sokka knelt down next to him, but Katara lingered in the doorway, hands raised, more shocked than she was prepared to heal. She was probably quicker to understand the situation than Sokka was, though, at least on something like this.

Zuko glanced down at the stains in his pants, darker than the scarlet fabric, and soaking into the bedroll, too, the crimson more vivid against the lighter cream cotton.

Zuko sighed.

“Okay, Zuko, don’t move,” Sokka said, striving for calm, but anxiety made his voice shriller.

“Sokka-“ Zuko tried.

“You’re gonna be okay, Katara can heal you.”

“I’m not stabbed.”

“Of course you are, that’s just the shock talking-“

“SOKKA!” Katara shouted. “Zuko’s fine. I think I know what this is.” Katara sat down, legs folded under her; she was much better at pretending not to be confused than Sokka was. Zuko wasn’t sure why she was confused. It wasn’t like the group didn’t know he was trans. “Moon time?”

Is that what the Water Tribe called it? Zuko nodded.

“Moon time?” Sokka looked between the two of them. “What-?”

Zuko lay back down as Katara explained. He’d barely been awake two minutes and he was already exhausted.

“This happens about once a month.” Katara spoke more patiently than Zuko would’ve. “Our bodies bleed, Gran Gran told me it’s part of the reproductive cycle-“

“Reproductive... Zuko, are you bleeding out of your _dick?_ ” Sokka’s pitch rose steadily throughout the question.

“What.” Zuko’s voice was emotionless, which was funny, because he was feeling a lot of emotions at the moment.

“Zuko, _answer me_. Is your dick okay?”

Zuko glared at Sokka. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Oh spirits, that’s a no.” Sokka looked so pale. If it weren’t for the stitch in Zuko’s side, he’d be laughing.

“Sokka, I don’t have a dick.”

Sokka froze.

Zuko managed a light scoff. “How is any of this surprising information to you?”

Katara answered this time. “Well, you’re a man. Moon time doesn’t happen to men.”

“Not to most men,” Zuko agreed.

Oh, wait.

They _didn’t_ know he was trans.

Zuko felt a spike of fear; if they didn’t yet know, they could change their minds about him once they did. He sat up again. “I just sort of assumed you guys knew.”

Katara tilted her head. This was the most compassionate and receptive she’d been to him since he’d arrived at the Western Air Temple. “Zuko,” she hesitated. “Are you trans?”

Zuko nodded. His shoulders climbed up towards his ears.

“Oh.” Sokka was silent for a moment, but it was Sokka, so the silence couldn’t last long. “Wait, this happens to you guys every month? Because that is so much blood.”

“Well, not usually that much,” Katara said, and her eyes met Zuko’s, searching for something.

He shrugged. “It’s always like this for me.” At least for the first two or three days.

Sokka’s nose crinkled, and before he could say anything, Katara crossed her arms and blurted out, “Sokka, I swear, if you complain about how gross this is or whatever, I will freeze all of your clothes in blocks of ice, because it’s way worse for us.”

“I wasn’t going to complain!” he objected.

“You complain about everything.”

Was this how normal siblings interacted? Azula’s threats to Zuko were always more _deadly_ than _inconvenient_.

Sokka huffed, but he shut up.

“Zuko.” Zuko jumped at the softness of Katara’s voice. “Do you need anything?”

His cheeks heated slightly. “Uh, everything? I forgot to grab anything before I left.”

She nodded, as if she was going to help him. Even though she didn’t trust him. Even though he hadn’t earned her trust yet.

“Does it hurt?” Sokka asked, more curious than anything. “I mean, it looks like it would hurt.”

Zuko shrugged again. It did hurt, but he’d worked through it before. “I can handle it.” The worst part of it was the dysphoria it induced. “I should take a moment and wash these, though.”

“You can take the day off, if you want. Aang will understand.” When he didn’t answer immediately, she added, “I do, sometimes, when it’s really bad.”

As nice as it would be to lie in bed all day and curl up in a ball, he had to prove his worth to the group. Aang had to see his value as a firebending master. Besides, they didn’t have that long until Sozin’s Comet. They needed every day of training between now and then.

Zuko stood, wincing. “I’ll be fine.”

He stood, waiting for them to leave his room.

“Wait, does this happen to Gran Gran, too? Or Toph?” Sokka asked.

Katara stood and tugged his arm, rolling her eyes. As she dragged him from the room, Zuko could hear her explaining, “No and no. Gran Gran’s too old, and Toph’s too young.”

Zuko closed the door behind them, but for once he didn’t need the isolation it provided, only the privacy.

He cleaned up as best he could – Katara brought him some water, which helped significantly – and changed into clean clothes.

Aang was already up when Zuko left his room, and Zuko joined him in silent meditation.

“Sifu Hotman,” Aang said.

Zuko scowled, but he wasn’t in the mood to fight about titles. All he could think about was the blood that was soaking into the rags Katara had given him, and the fact that while he was sitting up, it’d be worse. Thanks, gravity.

Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth.

It seemed as though both Sokka and Katara had been surprised to learn Zuko was trans. There was a slight thrill of gender euphoria at that; they had just accepted that he was a guy, and had never thought otherwise.

Zuko peeked over at Aang.

“Aang?” Zuko said softly.

“Yes, Sifu-“

Zuko interrupted him. “Zuko. My name is Zuko. Please.”

“I have to show you respect, as my firebending master,” Aang argued.

Zuko sighed, and a few sparks danced on that puff of air.

Why was he scared to come out? The Air Nomads had been one of the most accepting cultures, before, well.

Aang would understand.

But if he didn’t...

“Nevermind.”

Aang accepted that without a fight, which was pleasantly surprising.

Zuko forced himself to sit still, to try to forget the thickness and cumbersomeness of the rags, the smear of scarlet he’d wiped off his inner thigh earlier...

The dysphoria was back tenfold. Even his chest felt worse, despite the bindings flattening it. But it couldn’t be that noticeable, if Sokka had assumed...

He was thinking in circles.

Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.

“When are we gonna have breakfast?” Aang asked.

Zuko opened his right eye to look at him. “Whenever, I guess.” He didn’t feel like eating anything. In part because of the nausea that always accompanied the pain in his hips, and in part because it felt awful to not have control over his own body, and he wanted to take what control he could. If nothing else, he could choose his weight.

Truthfully, controlling his weight had been the only thing that had kept him sane while he had been back in Caldera with Azula and Ozai, both of whom teased him constantly, pretending to forget his preferred name and pronouns, ‘slipping’ and calling him princess. He was so much skinnier now than he’d been in Ba Sing Se, but it still wasn’t enough.

“Aren’t you coming?” Aang asked.

Zuko shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”

He heard Aang’s footsteps on the stone, lighter than anyone else’s and growing fainter, and then he focused on the heat of the sun on his skin. He breathed deeply, heating his core with controlled firebending, and some of the pain subsided.

He didn’t need food. He gritted his teeth. Food wouldn’t make him feel any less like he’d been stabbed.

He heard footsteps behind him, too heavy to be Aang, but not heavy enough to be Toph. Katara or Sokka, maybe? Or maybe one of the others? The only one whose name he remembered was Haru.

“Zuko?”

Sokka, then.

“I wanted to apologize.”

Zuko turned his head to look at him. “What for?”

“Asking a bunch of invasive questions, I guess. And for waking you up with my yelling.” Sokka shifted. After a few seconds of indecision, he joined Zuko, sitting with his body turned towards him. Sokka bit his lip.

“Just spit it out.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” The question came out in a rush. “That you’re trans. If that’s okay to ask, I don’t know what’s not okay and I don’t want to break any boundaries or anything-“

Zuko sighed. “I wasn’t trying to hide it. I thought you guys already knew.” At Sokka’s open expression, Zuko continued. “My crew on the _Wani_ knew, and Uncle, and I think it’s common knowledge to a lot of Fire Nation citizens.” He huffed. “Kind of hard to hide when your princess decides he wants to be a prince.” His father had been absolutely furious, but in those days his mother could protect him. He hadn’t realized just how much until she left, though.

“Oh.” Silence could never last long with Sokka. “It’s not the same, I know, but, uh, I’m bisexual?” He huffed. “I don’t know why I told you that, it’s not even relevant-“

Zuko couldn’t help the way his eyes flicked over Sokka, taking in all the details, from his wolftail down to his blocky, chunky Earth Kingdom green satchel.

“Uh. Anyway.” Sokka fidgeted.

“And Aang knows?” Zuko asked, softer than he’d have liked. He turned his face away.

“I think so. I’ve made a few comments, you know, had a celebrity crush on this big muscly earthbender called The Boulder... why? Oh, wait, you want to know if he’ll be okay with you- yeah, he won’t mind.”

“Good.” Zuko gave a weak laugh. “It’d be kind of frustrating to come all this way only for Aang to reject me as his master.”

“Dude, don’t even worry about it. Aang would never do that,” Sokka assured him.

“I know.” But enough people _had_ done that, his father included, that Zuko couldn’t help but fear the outcome anyway, logical or not.

Sokka slapped his shoulder. “Come eat breakfast.”

“But-“

“Look, I figure this _moon time_ stuff has to be kinda awful, but it might be slightly less awful if you actually eat.”

Zuko narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Did Sokka know that he didn’t eat as much as he should?

“I’m not hungry,” Zuko said.

Sokka sighed. “Try? For me?” When Zuko didn’t answer, he continued. “I don’t want to overstep or anything, but I worry about you sometimes. You miss a lot of meals.”

Zuko smirked to hide his hopes – thin and fragile as a strand of crabspider silk – when he said, “You worry about me?”

A slight blush appeared on Sokka’s cheeks. Hm. Interesting. “Not _you_ specifically, more than, you know, Toph, or Aang. And less than Katara. Since she’s my sister and all. We need the whole team to be strong if we’re going to have any chance against the Firelord.”

“Of course.” Still, Zuko felt slightly warmed by Sokka’s concern.

“If I brought you food, would you eat it?” Sokka asked.

“I suppose. Since we need to be strong to end the war and save the world.” Zuko decided to try for a joke. “But not as strong as Katara.”

Sokka grinned – at the joke or at Zuko’s concession, he wasn’t sure – and pulled his satchel into his lap. He threw it open. “Ta-da!” He’d stashed a number of moon peaches in the bag, along with some berries.

“You knew I was going to say yes.”

“I hoped.”

Zuko picked a moon peach and bit into it. “Katara’s being nice to me, you’re bringing me food...”

Sokka’s voice became gentler. “You’re part of our team now.” He added, “Besides, Katara’s only going to hurt you if you betray us.”

Zuko hummed. “Good to know.” He didn’t plan on it, anyway.

“In which case she will murder you.”

Zuko raised an eyebrow, but Sokka’s eyes were dead serious.

“I’ve gotten over trying to get my dad’s approval,” Zuko assured him.

“Your family is a little messed up.”

“I’m aware.”

“You’re okay, though.”

“Thanks,” Zuko deadpanned.

“I’m just saying, for a guy who tried to kill us, you’re alright.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

Sokka waved Zuko’s protests away. “Nuance.”

So Sokka was okay with Zuko being trans, or at least fantastic at acting normal anyway. And Katara didn’t mind, either; her problem with Zuko was entirely because of Zuko’s past actions, which was fair, but he someday hoped to atone.

Aang was the next logical group member to come out to.

It should be easy, right? Of course Aang was going to be accepting.

It wasn’t easy.

Every time Zuko got up the courage to try, he choked on his words. It felt like... maybe Aang would see him differently, respect him less, once he knew. Aang’s respect as a firebending master felt like something Zuko _needed_ , in a way he didn’t need respect from the others. He had to prove that his father had been wrong to think him insignificant, and he had to stop the war before Sozin’s Comet came.

A younger Zuko would have said it was his honor that depended on Zuko being an effective firebending teacher to the Avatar. Current Zuko thought maybe the world depended on it.

Okay, yes, Zuko was being dramatic. He knew that. He also couldn’t just... get over it.

Toph was easier to confess to, even though she didn’t stop picking her toes for the conversation.

“Dude. You burned my feet and I still like you! I couldn’t care less what’s in your pants.” Toph followed up the statement by flicking a toe pebble at him.

“Oh.” From what Zuko remembered, the Earth Kingdom wasn’t super accepting of trans people. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but why?”

She shrugged. “I’ve had people telling me how to live my life since birth. I’m not about to do that to someone _else_.”

“Thank you,” Zuko said.

“Thank me when I do something to deserve it.” She flicked another pebble at him. “Which I will, because I’m awesome.”

“I know.” Where did Aang find such powerful benders? Who were all children, for some reason?

And now Aang was the only member of the group who still didn’t know.

Toph and Sokka both agreed that Zuko should just come out and say it, but he figured he should phrase it more delicately than, “Aang, I don’t have a dick.”

And no, “Aang, you might find this shocking, but I don’t have a dick and that’s okay” did not fix the problem, Sokka.

Katara refused to offer advice at all.

“Honestly, Zuko, I respect that this is a big deal to you, but I don’t really understand why, so I don’t think I can help.” Katara was finally allowing him to help a little bit with cooking, insofar as Zuko was allowed to start the fire. She did everything else, still wary that he’d poison them all or something. “You know he’ll be okay with it, so it seems like the only thing to do is tell him.”

Zuko sighed. She was right. “Thanks.”

“Now get away from the soup.” She shooed him off.

He wasn’t that hungry, anyway. Day two of his period was still brutal.

At least in his room he could lie down. And no one could perceive him here, so his dysphoria wasn’t as bad.

He tried to heat his core, but the ache was still deeply painful. He couldn’t stop thinking about the blood, either, because if he forgot for more than an hour or two, it’d seep into the fabric of his pants and then they’d have a repeat of yesterday morning. Screaming and explaining and nothing he wanted to deal with right now.

“Sifu hotman?”

Of course.

Zuko blinked at Aang. “Yeah?”

“I brought you some food.” He held out the soup bowl. Zuko sat up and gestured for Aang to enter, and he crossed the threshold towards the bed slowly.

“Are you okay?” Aang asked, as he handed over the soup.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Zuko didn’t mean to sound angry all the time, anger was just easier to convey than other emotions.

“No reason!” Aang swayed back and forth on the balls of his feet for a moment. “Except, uh, you seem...”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

The spoon clinked against the bowl. Zuko took a bite of soup. It didn’t make his nausea go away.

“So I didn’t think this was new information – I mean, I assumed everyone knew already? – but it turns out Sokka and Katara and Toph didn’t know, so I thought maybe I should tell you...” Zuko took a deep breath. “I’m trans.”

Aang blinked. For a long moment, he said nothing.

“Oh! That’s it. Okay. Uh, that’s fine?”

“It is?”

Aang shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I-” Zuko didn’t have an answer to that. He certainly wasn’t ashamed of being trans, despite his dysphoria. He wouldn’t be himself if he hadn’t had to fight to have his gender recognized, in the same way that he wouldn’t be himself if he’d been the firebending prodigy instead of Azula. He might view that path differently now than he had all those months ago, ranting about luck to an unresponsive Avatar in a frozen cave, but it was true: struggling and fighting had made him who he was.

“Okay, then.” Aang looked like he wanted to say more, but was unsure of his welcome.

Zuko scooted up the bed to make room for Aang, and he eagerly took the vacated spot, folding his legs underneath him.

“How did everyone else take it?” Aang asked.

“Really well.” They’d all treated it like it wasn’t a big deal. Mostly. Aside from Sokka’s screaming.

“Good.” Aang nodded. “How did they find out?”

Zuko winced. “Kind of a long story.”

“Okay.” Aang definitely knew Zuko was lying, but at least he wasn’t pushing the matter.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Zuko asked. There was a part of him that was waiting for Aang to react... differently. He’d tensed himself as if for a fight, and now that there wasn’t one, he wasn’t sure what to do.

“The monks taught us that focusing too much on our physical bodies prevents us from seeing spiritual matters clearly, but that sometimes, if the physical body doesn’t fit, it can be a barrier to enlightenment. It’s okay to try and find a way to create harmony with your own physical form.” Aang smiled. “One of my friends – Lan – actually joined the boys’ part of the temple when we were eight, and he taught us a bunch of stories that the girls told each other while they were spinning. It made spinning _way_ more fun!”

Zuko had lost the point, somewhere in there, but he got the general notion that Aang had had a trans friend, back before the war, and that the Air Nomads were okay with it.

Which was pretty much what he’d expected. Still. He hadn’t been _sure_.

Aang seemed to understand that Zuko needed some time alone to process after his confession, or that he was tired, and he left Zuko to his soup.

Was this what having friends felt like?

\---

Zuko woke again several hours later, with the moon shining silver in his window. As his senses came back to him, he groaned. He was soaked in blood again.

He stood and grimaced at the sticky scarlet splotches on the bedroll. Ugh.

He changed into clean clothes and rolled up everything that was stained, to carry it down to the river to wash. It would be easier to wash it there, and easier to do it now, when everyone was asleep.

Well. Almost everyone.

Sokka was sitting on the edge of one of the temple’s many courtyards, staring up at the moon. He turned at the sound of Zuko’s footfalls on the stone.

“You can join me, if you want,” Sokka said, and it sounded more like a request than an offer.

Zuko set his laundry down and sat next to Sokka, his legs dangling off the edge. He didn’t quite know what Sokka wanted from him.

Company would suffice, though, apparently, because for a long moment, neither of them spoke. Instead, Zuko studied the moonlight’s sharp effect on the cliffside, casting long shadows after the rocks, making everything seem paler. A stubborn flower clung to the cliffside, its leaves wilting slightly but its purple flower still spiky and bright. A cool breeze ruffled Zuko’s hair, and Sokka’s, which was hanging down around his face.

Sokka was the one to break the silence. “How do you feel, now that everyone knows?”

“Better.” It didn’t actually make much of a difference, since before all of this Zuko had assumed that everyone knew and therefore must be okay with it, but he figured Sokka would rather hear that he felt better.

Sokka nodded; Zuko had guessed right.

Although... talking with people was becoming less of a guessing game lately.

In Caldera, there was always a right answer to a question, or a right response to something, and no one would tell Zuko what it was, but they would punish him if he was wrong. Here... he wouldn’t be punished. Not really. Katara might frown a bit, or Sokka might tease him, but otherwise, they let him say the wrong thing. He was relying on shouting less and less to get himself through conversations.

“You’re not as talkative as usual,” Zuko tried.

Sokka glanced over at him. “Yeah.” He paused. “Everything feels heavier, at night. Everything we’ve lost.”

His gaze flicked back to the moon and settled there. The light washed him out; Zuko preferred Sokka during the daytime, when he looked warmer.

“I thought the Water Tribe rises with the moon.”

“Nah, just the waterbenders.”

“Oh.” Cheer didn’t come naturally to Zuko, but he searched for something positive; he wanted Sokka to look a little less melancholy. “We’ve gained some things, too.”

“Yeah.” A slight smile spread across Sokka’s face. “Who would’ve thought we’d end up being friends, way back when you invaded my village and I hit you with my boomerang?”

“I won that fight, as I recall,” Zuko pointed out, certain that it was a mistake to do so.

“And then we won the rematch.”

Which had ended with Zuko’s ship stuck in an iceberg.

“But now we’re friends.” The notion filled Zuko with an unfamiliar emotional warmth; the closest thing he’d ever felt to this was in Ba Sing Se with Uncle, the day the Jasmine Dragon had opened, and they’d been happy. But Zuko hadn’t been happy about the shop – he didn’t understand or share Uncle’s obsession with tea – he’d been happy that Uncle was so happy. “Does everyone know about this?”

“About what?”

Zuko struggled for the words. Warmth? Affection? Support? “It’s like being _safe_.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow. “Am I imagining that we’re in the middle of a war? Against your dad?”

“No, I mean this.” He gestured between the two of them. “Or, all of us.” He waved towards the temple, inside which the others slumbered.

“Wait. Do you mean _having friends?_ ”

Zuko felt a blush coloring his cheeks. Sokka stared at him in disbelief.

“You’ve never had friends before?”

“Not like this,” he said, because it sounded better than admitting that all his friends had been Azula’s friends.

Sokka looked like he wanted to respond sarcastically – _yes, people know about having friends, weirdo_ – but he didn’t. “It’s pretty nice, huh?”

Zuko nodded gratefully. Sokka’s answer was a genuine one; maybe he hadn’t had many friends at the South Pole, either.

The night air settled around them, heavy with humidity when the breeze died down, and for a moment the two of them basked in it.

Then, unexpectedly, Sokka yawned. Zuko felt the strange urge to brush his brown hair back behind his ear.

“I’m gonna go to bed.” Sokka stood. “See you in the morning, _friend_.”

Zuko watched him walk away, and the steady warmth that filled him when he hung out with Aang or Toph was replaced by an unsteady, skipping feeling, like his heartbeat stuttering.

Oh.

_Oh_.

Why was every problem Zuko solved replaced with a new one?

For now, he pushed it out of his mind and gathered his things to do his laundry. He could deal with his crush later.


End file.
